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Just been reading the first arc of Gail Simone's Secret Six. This is excellent, so fun, so funny, keeps a great pace. Has a villain that is downright disturbing and gives a lot of horror comics to shame. Will be reading more!

Haven't read comics in years, and got curious enough by the new Thanos series thanks to all the hype these days about the Avengers.

But here's the rub. I bought the digital version of the comic, which cost the same price as the print version... An artificial limit put in place as to not piss off comic book store owners by price matching. And that I have a problem with. So until that gets sorted out, I'm not going to go much further to support such silliness. There must be a better business model, ie. after all the issues are out, sell as a pack at 50% off. Or pre-order the series for 50% off.

Not reading it but probably going to now, I finished up the first (currently only series) of Attack on Titan.

I'm a person who dislikes anime quiet a bit. I watched some of it in my teen years but overly zealous and pushy friends/friends of friends put me off it by being just too hyped about anime shows. And there was a lot of stuff I didn't like in the shows. I'm not a fan of the sort of "anime" humour that exists. Stuff like spiny eyes, shrunken facial features when they're embarrassed, tear drops appearing out of their foreheads, their heads growing in size and their mouth covering 90% of their face when they yell, all that kinda stuff.

But AoT managed to mostly avoid all that with the last funny anime moment happened in about episode 3 of 25, where a girl eats a potato at an inappropriate time only to have half her friends murdered horribly in the next few episodes.

But now the series is over and they haven't even started on a second one. So I think I have to buy the mangas and catch up because it ends on a massive cliff hanger where it revels that there's a human titan stuck inside one of the walls.

Comics wise I picked up Rat Queens, which everyone who likes fantasy and humour should do, unless you don't like cursing and early twenty something female hero characters who like getting drunk and rowdy. It's got great humour and lovely art and you should all buy it because Image are putting out fantastic books without editors making crazy decisions and they just like the artist and writer do what they want.

"Halo is designed to make the player think "I look like that, I am macho sitting in my undies with my xbox""

Sorry if this is the wrong place for this, but after finishing playing the Batman: Arkham games I've been inspired to give some off the comic/graphic novels a go. Just wondering where a good place for a Batman novice would be to start?

It depends. For the modern Batman origins you want Batman Year 1, The Long Halloween and Dark Victory. I am weary recommending Year 1 as I've not read it in a while but it's basically considered the definitive origin story. I suspect some of Miller's libertarianism might be in there but I've not looked in a while. Someone mentioned Halloween above. But Dark Victory is by the same guy also by Loeb was Hush which I also don't care about but very much has Lee's artwork front and centre.

Some classics: Gothic, Arkham Asylum which are both brilliant and by Grant Morrison, AA has lots in common with the first game as they echoed parts of it. Joker by Azarello, The Killing Joke by Moore. Then there's The Dark Knight Returns, which is a mixed bag. On one hand it's the origin of the more psychological modern take on batman, on the other it's basically Frank Miller doing a "I hate organised Government! I am going to go live in the middle of nowhere with a gun." brand of politics.

Good "Bat Family" stuff: All of Gotham Central, it's basically a modern police story just set in Gotham, imagine the Wire but with Batman occasionally turning up and pissing all the detectives off, it's by Greg Rukka and Ed Brubacker. Batwoman Elegy, also by Rucka but with JH Williams III who is probably the best layout artist currently working in comics. Also the modern reboot of Catwoman (ie 2003 ish?) by Brubacker and Darwyn Cooke is great.

Then there is Grant Morrison's just finished run which took about 6 years. Which is brilliant at every point and really got me back into comics after years off them. It is however long, esoteric and a bit weird. Batman and Son is the first part. Probably easier to get Morrison's style from Arkham Asylum or Gothic.

Basically it comes down to writers:
Loeb and partly Miller for core background stories.
Grant Morrison for utter brilliance if a touch of the weird.
Rucka, Brubacker and JH Williams for a more noire/pulp style.

Gin No Saji (Silver Spoon) - city boy enrolls in agricultural high school that leads to a wonderfully realised fish out of water slice of life story that manga does really well. Same author as Full Metal Alchemist so highly recommended. Warning: story will make you hungry as it turns out agricultural high school spend a LOT of time making meat and dairy products. Warning #2: might even turn you off meat as the manga is quite happy to clue you into the gruesome side of things (slaughter houses, packaging, poultry farms etc.)

One Piece - still the greatest action adventure super hero series that has ever existed and no you can offer no counter arguments so don't even bother. I never thought Morrison's New X-Men, Whedon's Astonishing X-Men and Millar's Ultimates could be topped for me but One Piece does it on a weekly basis.

Dark Avengers: Ares TPB - gloriously silly, ludicrous, over the top and exactly the sort of behaviour you want from a wanton god of war/slaughter/death with no scruples and conviction in every word he says and every movement he makes. "Stationary offense?" makes me piss my pants every time. And no one has stared down Norman Osborn like Ares does. Even Spiderman didn't manage that.

Hajime No Ippo - sports manga about boxing. I can't begin to describe how much I love this series. Been reading for 13 years and i'll never stop till it ends. Its been running since 1989! Takamura is quite simply THE KING OF EVERYONE THERE IS!

I'm with Shane, Batman: Year 100 is amazing. Paul Pope's artwork is lovely, so imaginative and its full of energy (if that makes any sense).

Recently, I've been enjoying Saga and The Massive but I just got the first issue of The Star Wars, based on the original script for Star Wars (unsurprisingly). It is, in a word, bananas. Highly enjoyable to see what Star Wars could have been although it never would have been made and some of the plot is actually more nonsensical that the prequels, if you can believe such a thing. You have one nameless Empire being overthrown by another nameless Empire. Except the first Empire had Jedi's.

He does that in like the first or second book. You've no real idea what his back story is by that point. You know by then that he's a merc and that's about it. He's not set up as being dead inside. There could be a reason that he takes a stance when it comes to children being forced into becoming sex slaves.

"Halo is designed to make the player think "I look like that, I am macho sitting in my undies with my xbox""

He does that in like the first or second book. You've no real idea what his back story is by that point. You know by then that he's a merc and that's about it. He's not set up as being dead inside. There could be a reason that he takes a stance when it comes to children being forced into becoming sex slaves.

This is true, but remember that he visited a major interstellar hub of prostitution (a planet?) somewhere in the midst of a galactic war. I would be shocked if they didn't have the most vile options available. What transpires is basically him transplanting our values onto a much more brutal reality. That is why it feels a bit hamfisted to me.

You've no idea what his back story is at this point beyond very vague clues. Perhaps the reason he wanted to save the child was because on route to Sextillian he got the call from The Stalk, who he was romantically involved with. That call could've put him to a different mind set.

Also just going to get a hooker doesn't mean he's a monster. He can still have values and morals about not wanting to see children not be given the chance to be children. I don't get the feeling that it's a hamfisted effort to make us feel good about him saving little girls.

"Halo is designed to make the player think "I look like that, I am macho sitting in my undies with my xbox""

I did not expect him to be a monster, just not to to react with such outrage in a world where lots of nasty shit goes. It's a bit like Django - Django and Schultz react to slavery like we would, wheras it was pretty much a common sight back then. Analogically, the world of Saga gave me an impression of a place where lots of really horrible stuff would be acceptable or at least more tolerated than here. Hence my feeling of dissonance.

Yeah I'm not trying to shout you down, just discussing which is something we rarely get in this thread because everyone is too busy with video games!

I didn't get the feeling that the world universe of Saga was somewhere where really horrible stuff went on. The war is only really between two races of people. I didn't get the impression it was even that big of a war outside of the two parties involved. Either way I except it'll be expanded upon, but I could be wrong. My view on it is that The Will sees something in that child that he wanted with The Stalk.

And in relation to D'jango, he was a slave. I think his reaction was pretty fair all things considering. I'm sure many a slave would've taken the same actions given half the chance.

"Halo is designed to make the player think "I look like that, I am macho sitting in my undies with my xbox""

The war is only really between two races of people. I didn't get the impression it was even that big of a war outside of the two parties involved.

I think in several of the issues it states that whilst the war is between two powers (Wreath and Landfall), they've forced thousands of other planets to pick a side and fight for them, so the war doesn't damage their planets. I believe Prince Robot's wife makes a comment about "client races" fighting for them and being dismissive of them, so I'd side with Mouton that it seems to be a bit of a crapsack universe. Thats' why I was surprised when the Will suddenly had a massive attack of conscience. I'm not expecting him to be a massive dick and start laughing/twirling his moustache but as Mouton says, maybe being indifferent or slightly offended by it. Still, it was good to see how dangerous he was a few issues later when he rescues the slavegirl.
As an aside, as an aspiring illustrator, I've spoken several times with Fiona Staples and she's a lovely person, very helpful and friendly.

But even if we say that it's a crapsack universe, what's to say he has to accept that children in sex slavery is acceptable or tolerable? It's literally the third thing we see him do. 1) Takes job 2) Watches old movies of him and his ex 3) gets offered child services by a pimp and takes a stand against it. Why does he have to accept that because the universe is at war that this is an ok thing and he should just let it be? It's hardly as on the nose as it's being made out to be.

"Halo is designed to make the player think "I look like that, I am macho sitting in my undies with my xbox""

I agree, its not exactly on the nose but without any explanation, we get characters referring to him as deadly as ruthless and remorseless, the worst thing ever and he suddenly goes from being described as a Terminator to being a jerk with a heart of gold. A little bit of dialogue or exposition to explain why he's doing it would be nice - perhaps he had a child stolen from him into similar circumstances, a brother or sister that it happened to.

I don't remember himself saying all that though, if anyone did it was probably the Robot. In fact he pretty much throws in the towel on his current job because he gets a call from The Stalk telling him she's on the same job. That's why he goes to the sex place, because he's already assumed she'll have completed the mission and he may as well spend some of his expense allowance before the account is shut down.

I'm sure all of this will be explained in time. Saga is very clearly in it for a long run as opposed to everything being thrown out in the first five issues.

I still think it has something to do with him and the Stalk. We know he loved her, perhaps he wanted her weird spider babies. Or perhaps he's not actually ruthless and remorseless. He does after all have Lying Cat to let him know if someone's lying or not. If he was that ruthless and remorseless he'd probably shoot first and ask questions later. Luckily Brian K Vaughn isn't terrible at making characters though!

"Halo is designed to make the player think "I look like that, I am macho sitting in my undies with my xbox""